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Email letters, Sept. 15, 2011

In a recent Daily Sentinel editorial about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, I wish the Sentinel had pointed out that the original concept was sound. Perry’s calling it a Ponzi scheme is ridiculous.

After its creation, it wasn’t long before the Social Security fund had a large surplus, but Congress couldn’t keep its hands off it. Social Security would be financially sound today if Congress hadn’t corrupted the original intent by raiding the fund for other purposes and by adding numerous unfunded entitlements to it.

All that is necessary to rescue Social Security is to restore it to its original status of a retirement fund for workers, and for Congress to keep its hands off the money.

JOHN TRAMMELL
Grand Junction

Airport rules are causing hangar value to drop

The September 13 article on airport land leases did not mention two specific items.

First is that the airport authority, not state law or FAA rules and regulations, determines land lease policy. That policy used to include a new lease with the sale of any building. Such a situation allows for bank financing and the certainty of knowing that the property you built or purchased has future value. In one specific case, a large business hangar at this airport has been sold four times over the years and each sale was accompanied by a new lease. The policy has since been changed from renewal at the end of a lease term or upon sale to confiscation of the asset. That is why so many hangars are now for sale — they lose value every day as their lease end date approaches. You can rest assured that no company with an aviation division will ever relocate to Grand Junction.

Second is that there will be a long line of hangar owners petitioning the assessor for reduced property values. If this confiscation policy stands, every airport property will be worth zero at the end of the lease and that means each year between now and then it will be worth less. That loss of property tax revenue will be made up by increased taxes on other property owners. And when the airport completes its planned seizure of many millions of dollars of property now taxed, it will pay no taxes on any of it from that point on.

BILL MARVEL
Grand Junction

Ten Commandments are obviously being missed

It was sad reading David Brooks’ column “Free-floating Morality,” when he related “Smith and company asked about the young people’s moral lives, and the results are depressing.” Perhaps the results would have been less depressing if Smith could have reported some young person answering that the Ten Commandments were the basis for his/her moral decisions. An added encouragement would be if that person had said, “The Ten Commandments that were posted in our school’s classroom.” Are we reaping what we’ve sown?